Storage. Where does it all go?

Your immediate answer will be a form of cloud storage like Dropbox, iCloud, or Google Docs. But you didn’t answer the question yet. Where does it go? Lets build up to that.

In this I will also rank the speed of the drive or device used to store memory whether in bulk or in small quantities.

A bit of vocabulary before we begin:

SSD – Solid State Drive
HDD – Hard Disk Drive
M.2 – A port on the motherboard
NVMe – Non-Volatile Memory express (Type of Storage of memory)
SATA – Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Cable)

M.2 NVMe SSDs:

This is an internal memory unit. They can range anywhere from 64 GB to 2 TB but as they get larger, they get more expensive. This form of storage isn’t intended for long term storage. In other words, if you have pictures of your grand children in there and that’s all you use it for, you’re too rich to care or something.

This form of storage is as fast as it gets and is intended for things that are accessed every minute or even second such as video games or programs. These storage devices have to think as fast as possible but don’t suffer from moving parts (We will get to that later)

SATA III SSDs:

SATA is the bandwidth of the cable used from the motherboard of the computer to the SSD. SATA III is the newest iteration of it to keep up with the speed of the SSD. These SSDs can range anywhere from 64 GB to 4 TB. Again as we get bigger, it gets more expensive. Although the size of storage is similar to the previous memory type, it is about double the physical size.

This type of storage is used in a similar fashion as the last storage device, only bigger and not nearly as expensive.

HDD:

Here is where it gets interesting. This can be considered old technology because it involves literal moving parts. There are 2-5 disks inside named “Platters” and there is a needle similar to a record player called “heads”. They search through the platters and can travel radially but the disk must spin for any lateral movements.

The reason why this is so interesting is because these types of storage are triple and even quadruple the size of the previous two items. They can range anywhere from 64 GB to as big as 14 TB.

The thing about a HDD is that they can break, but it takes only forever to do so. Moving parts are a no go for anything in technology in the modern world.

These are what you would want to store things that you don’t intend on opening up everyday. Instead of having a massive 50 pound bag of pictures that will take forever to search through, an HDD can save that space for you.

Magnetic tapes:

This was all leading to the largest form of memory there is. Tapes. Old technology for sure. This is out of my area of expertise, I will be referencing this blog from IEEE Spectrum by Mark Lantz to guide my blog.

They use magnetic tapes for massive amounts of storage. Storage like old archives, business information such as endless amounts of invoices and even media producer Linus Tech Tips uses it for storage of his old footage.

The storage of a magnetic tape in this modern era can be up to 15 TB. That is already bigger than the biggest HDD mentioned moments ago. Magnetic tape has come a long way from the mix tapes people would make back in the day. Modern libraries of these tapes can store up to 278 petabytes of data.

In case that number is too large for you, 1 petabyte [PB] = 1000 terabytes [TB]

Now we know where it all goes.

It doesn’t go into a literal cloud in the sky in storage heaven. It’s down here on earth using technology you thought was long gone.

Honorable mention: USBs

USBs have been the greatest invention since sliced bread. USBs are the new sliced bread they’re so good. They’re slow, but they’re small and most definitely and most importantly, they get the job done. They can be anywhere from 8 GB to 1 TB. At that point though they just look like squashed boxes of memory.

USBs was something I had to mention in this blog because they have saved countless hours of my time and potentially for you too.